My UK Adventure – Day 6

Today I woke up at Steve and Zoe’s lower level flat with Marie and Fender there to greet me. I became friends with Steve and Zoe thru face book and Jacky. Marie is living with them now as she was getting lost in the pack at Jacky’s. She needed a smaller household in order for her training to take off. When I planned this trip to the UK it was to meet Jacky, Steve, and Zoe and to see Marie once again since she left my household earlier this year. Jacky lives in the county so I spent the first part of my trip there to enjoy the county life and then the last part of my trip was with Steve and Zoe in the city so I could enjoy city live in the UK. It was the best of both worlds for a trip, to meet up with newly made friends and be able to see both types of living. I couldn’t ask for a better trip.

The day started with breakfast at McDonalds, oh how I was missing McDonalds. I went from eating McDonalds once a day to 7 days of withdrawals. Their egg McMuffin was on an English muffin which was so much better than the hard biscuits in the states. After breakfast we had a busy day ahead of us. First I had Steve take me to the nearest Harley Davison store so I could get T-Shirts for my Harley friends back in the states that said London on them. Then it was off to London it was for all the touristy activities. Steve and Zoe wanted to make this a memorable trip for me and had our day all outlined so I could get the most out of the two days I was spending with them. The first experience was the train ride. I have never been on a train or to a train station. I had to learn that when I stuck the ticket into the meter and walked thru the revolving thing a maginy  that I needed to grab my ticket as it came out the top of the device so I could get back on the train to come home. They live only 15 minutes from London so the ride wasn’t that long. Most people take the train because there are just so many people living there so not many places to park cars; it also saves on pollution and saving the environment.

We arrived at the London station and our tour began. We started by going to the London Bridge Experience: The London Bridge Experience & London Tombs is one of London’s top award winning attractions offerings its visitor’s two attractions in one offering both history and horror.

Take a gruesome trip through the dark history of London’s most famous bridge that includes bloody Roman soldiers, giant rats but be sure to keep your head when you meet the executioner! Then plunge into a former plague pit; the London Tombs where your pulse will race and your throat will grow sore from screaming at the UK’s top scare attraction!

I love haunted houses so this was a great attraction for me to see. I started out being the leader because Steve was afraid of the dark but by the time we made it to the tombs then somehow Steve got in the lead then Zoe and I. We all had to hold on to the person’s shoulders in front of us. The goblins would jump out and scare us and I would start laughing because I knew what was happening or going to happen and the others were screaming. When we would hit another dark area Steve would go “please don’t touch me”, “please don’t touch me” then they would jump out and scare him! I was enjoying watching Steve and Zoe go through this. The scenes were all set up so scary and real like along with the chainsaw scene, a haunted house isn’t complete without its chainsaw scene. It was an amazing haunted tomb.

From there we walked the streets to the London Bridges.

The sites were breath taking. I saw the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, a London Hospital, and City Hall which was a round unique building made of glass then I saw the tallest building in London called the Shard which was all glass also.

The biggest tourist attraction was The Tower of London. We had to stand in line forever for tickets then when touring the castle people were all over the place. The castle was really cool being old and all but they didn’t have the artifacts or room set ups like in the castle that I visited the other day. They had signs hanging on the wall with pictures that explained what room you were in. The main attraction was the Crown Jewels. Everyone made sure they visited that. What a crazy mad house that was. You went into the building where the Crown Jewels were and then you would go into a big room and then threw a normal size door into another big room. Everyone thought that they were not going to see the Crown Jewels so they were pushing and shoving to get threw that doorway faster than the other person. That did not make the experience fun at all. Finally made it to the Crown Jewels and low and behold they were still there, no one stole them after all. They were a magnificent site to see but not worth someone getting hurt over. Checking out the part of the castle with the armor, swords, guns, canons, and life size horses over the years and how they changed in appearance was really cool.

Next was lunch time so they took to me a hopping burger place. We went to Byron’s Hamburgers.

It’s known for its great hamburgers and they were delicious. The onion rings were better than any onion rings I’ve had in the states. I think it was their secret green seasoning that I seen in the batter on the rings. They also had micro brewed beers.

After lunch our walking tour continued this time we were walking around London seeing all the sites around the Queens house. We say Charles & Camilla’s house on our way to the Queens house. The British flags were up and down the road that leads to the Queen’s house, once we reached her house with the many other tourists it was a site to see. The gates to the property were a site to see in themselves. The Queen’s place was hugh and the water fountain in front of her place was amazing. It was a nice place for tourists to stop and get some really nice photo’s since you really couldn’t get up and personal with her house. There was one light on in an upper room of the house and I believe I seen the Queen way to me but I couldn’t be for sure. We walked on the opposite sidewalk for the rest of the journey. You could see the London Eye and Big Ben from a distance. There was a wooden fence along the sidewalk and I said “with all the queens money you would think she could afford a decent fence” Steve and Zoe laughed at me and said that was probably left over from the Olympics just like the barricades that were still out on the sides of the streets. We saw ministry of defense buildings, museums, The Common Wealth building and many other historic buildings. It was all the stuff I seen on TV during London broadcasts and I couldn’t believe I was finally there seeing it all with my own eyes. I did find out that if you need to go to the bathroom you need to pay to use the public toilets. Guess I shouldn’t have drank that beer as I had to ask Zoe for change so I could use the toilet.

We walked past Big Ben and that was another amazing site. If I didn’t get to see any other historic part of London I would have been fine with that as long as I seen Big Ben. When the sun was going down the face of the clock lit up and had a beautiful glow to it.

Another site I wanted to see was the London Eye. Zoe hadn’t been on the London Eye either so it was nice to share in the experience.

We went at night and saw it at prime nighttime and it was a beautiful site to see all the different lights of London and to be able to pick out the different buildings. It was raining when we went so the pictures didn’t turn out. I have the memories in my mind that will last a lifetime.

Back to the train station and home to play with the pooches for the rest of the night. What a fabulous day and great tour guides!

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